ODO FB group?

[Bettyna]

What do you think of setting up an ODO FB members only group? I think there would be more participation..

[Tatyana]

Not a bad idea. We're all mostly sitting on FB anyway :P

[JudyL]

I think that should be up to Sabine if it was in an official capacity or uses the name, unless you meant it as a "friends from..." group to share non-dog stories and any pictures and would act as a gathering place for all of us that are on here. Sharing pictures on here is more difficult.

I like this format for the more serious issues related to health, feeding, equipment purchase & fit, training, etc and would not like to lose this as a valuable resource. It allows for searching back through the old topics and posts that wouldn't work on FB.

I recently set up a similar "friends from" type group for my tax forum in hopes that the overal tone of the main site will improve if we become friendlier outside of our main tax forum and the work-related topics.

[Bettyna]

Yes definitely an official thing, which is why I asked here! FB Groups has improved quite a bit, with a search function and we can make it private and request only to join. I am part of a mummy group on FB which is very well moderated so I thought it might be a good thing. I also thought since sometimes I see posts on FB asking "ODO peeps..." so the ODO FB Group could become a more "instant response" type forum.

Sabine?

[Sabine]

IMO there would really be no point in having this forum if there's also an "official" Facebook group. Facebook users would migrate over there and the forum would become even quieter than it has been already since FB's popularity increased. People who don't want to use FB are then left behind.

It's also important to me to not give over everything to the Zuckerberg empire. Here on ODO you don't have any ads, you are not being tracked other than in terms of forum functionality (whether you are logged in, have read a particular post or not, etc.), and you can rest assured that all data is hosted on our own secure server that resides here in the US and cannot be accessed by any third parties. Nothing is being shared for any purposes, and if there's a request for removal, all you need to do is PM me.

We are still waiting on a software update to improve forum functionality, especially for mobile devices, and that will be implemented as soon as it becomes available.

[LisaT_II]

I like having the forum - I am sad that forums are out of favor nowadays. FB groups are really a mess if you are on them for information reasons (stuff other than chatting or sharing pictures.

[SherriA]

I love FB groups for sharing photos and silly stories and quick anecdotes. I really prefer the forum format for more focused discussions on nutrition/health, behaviour, etc. I find this format a lot more useful when I'm trying to find information and references, and facebook groups great for the stuff that is fun and quick and doesn't need longevity.

[whiteboxerboy]

ditto Sherri and Lisa. FB is fun but i'd be wrecked without the forum for important issues when i need ODO'er info or moral support.

[Emily]

I was also going to say I like having this forum to come to, especially for things I try to keep a little more private from my non-dog friends

[connie]

I also like having ODO separate from FB.

And I agree with Lisa, that FB group formats aren't good for detailed discussions that can be revisited over days. I have a couple of FB groups and things scroll off really quickly, ir's very topical.

[Tatyana]

I was picturing it more as a group to share photos of our dogs and just sort of chat, and to keep the forum for serious health stuff. I'd still like to have a group on FB just for our circles, but to keep the discussion casual.

I'd share more photos on ODO, but its kind of a pain (I'm being super honest here, resizing for the forum takes me too long, and I can't for the life of me get photos to work with codes linked to somewhere else)

[maxs_mommy]

I'm with Emily on privacy, and that I can put way more detail here and find responses to a thread more easily but I do agree that a lot of us are on facebook and it does make it easy to share pics.

[Trademarkbark]

Bumping an old thread, but how is mobile functionality coming along? That is my only reason for not visiting more often.

[BarksaLot]

I'm late to this thread, but I'll add my two cents. I like that it's easy to post on FB, but I'm not on it like I used to which was a lot. We,have gotten into family fights on it, so I've unplugged from FB and try to stay away from it. So now I read the forum more, and with a couple challenging dogs I need the forum more than ever.

[Sabine]

Whoops Katie - completely missed your post! Sorry about that!

Nothing new with the forum software itself. I guess it's not a priority for the dev team. However, for some people the issues resolved on the user end, but not sure what exactly happened.

[Bari]

Late on this...keep this forum and format. It's ours alone!

[Amanda]

I never have trouble logging in or viewing posts from my phone (assuming I haven't forgotten my password ). I do wish photo sharing were easier here. I would do a lot more posting of pictures if it didn't require resizing, etc. That said, I am not using facebook as much any more. I felt like it was taking over my life so I am just checking my notifications on fridays and leaving it at that. It would be nice to have more people over here again.